


you're not a friend (no, you're nothing)

by mooncandies



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Ash Lynx Needs A Hug, Guilt, M/M, POV Second Person, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trauma, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:00:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27796555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mooncandies/pseuds/mooncandies
Summary: ash can't breathe through all the blood
Relationships: Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji, Ash Lynx/Shorter Wong
Comments: 11
Kudos: 35





	you're not a friend (no, you're nothing)

**Author's Note:**

> hey! this is an ash pov fic. it's unrequited shorash where ash knew shorter was always in love with him and feels even worse for everything he did. the unnamed "he" throughout the fic is shorter :) i hope that clears anything up and you enjoy

You fall for the boy from Japan fast.

You feel guilty, at first. You had always told your old friend you didn't think you were capable of love, when he confessed to you. You hadn't thought you were. He told you that was bullshit, said you had a big heart behind the walls you built.

Eiji came knocking them down without trying.

He knew. He knew from the very beginning. You think he could see the way you looked at Eiji. Your eyes softened in a way they never did for him. 

He wasn't mad at you. Never angry. Only soft brown eyes and careful touches and lovesick smiles. Above all, he had been good. He was so, so good, and you tried so hard to love him the way he did you. You wanted to. There were fleeting moments in darkness where you kissed him, and you really only wanted the touch of someone who loved you for once, and you think he knew that, but he kissed back anyway.

It hurt him. All you ever did was hurt him in his goodness, and he loved you anyway. You think he never stopped till the day he died.

Maybe it's fitting you killed him with a shot to the heart.

You think that's the most sickening thing, and you scratch your arms till they bleed. Sometimes Eiji has to hold your hands for hours or they won't stop shaking.

He doesn't mind it. Never complains, not once. You wish he would.

They're all careful with you. They tip toe around words like open wounds and it makes you sick. They're good the way he was, and you know you're going to get them all killed.

You think you're not allowed to hurt, because you're the one who killed him, but it does. It hurts so much you think you're drowning in it sometimes, and you think it's the way quicksand would feel. You know you deserve it.

You see his blood on your hands. You feel and smell it, too-everywhere. Your clothes, the walls, behind your eyelids when you close them. You scrub your skin raw to get it to leave, and even then you feel guilt crawling up your back at the thought that you're trying to get rid of him even in death. Your love presses kisses to your knuckles and tells you he would forgive you, and Eiji doesn't understand when you recoil.

Sometimes, at night, you feel his calloused hands on you. It's dark and you can't see him, but you can feel him. He's everywhere around you and you can feel his hand around your throat making it hard to breathe.

Eiji tastes like him when you kiss. Your stomach hurts at the thought and you stop kissing your love altogether.

It all hurts. The color purple, the smell of leather, every month of summer. It all reminds you of him. You don't know how you make it through every day.

But it's still less than you hurt him, you tell yourself when you're gripping the edges of the sink to keep yourself from falling, remembering how to breathe. Still less than you hurt him, you mumble when the dark threatens to suffocate you and every minute passes slower.

And it's still less than you hurt him when Lao stabs you. 

A lot less, really - you don't think anything could compare to the feeling of his blood soaking into your flesh. You barely feel it. 

You think it's a good thing. You'll never hurt Eiji again. As you stumble back into the library, you can finally breathe in books instead of his blood. You only wish it had been sooner.

For the first time in a year, you close your eyes and are met with a pair of brown ones that aren't his. And you smile.

Maybe that's adding salt to the wound, the fact that you're happy his face is gone. You saw it every time you closed your eyes. Sometimes, if you were lucky, he was smiling one of those soft ones from years ago when you would lay on the roof of the Chang Dai together. Usually, it was his face when he begged you to set him free. You know that despite all this Shorter wouldn't be angry with you, and maybe that's because he was blinded by love. Or maybe it meant something.

You realize as a final, fleeting thought that your dying breath was spent as a whisper of your love's name. Maybe you owe Shorter more than that. You think he had always deserved better.


End file.
